Human Rights and Common Good

Collected Essays Volume III

John Finnis

Brings together for the first time John Finnis's wide-ranging contributions to political philosophy, developing his account of political community, social justice, and contemporary controversies in political morality

Includes six previously unpublished papers, including an analysis of the foundations of human rights, the role of labor unions in a just society, and a new restatement of the morality of sexual relations

Coverage includes the major battlegrounds of modern political morality, from the role of the state in personal relations, the nature and achievement of economic justice, and the legal control of euthanasia and abortion

Human Rights and Common Good

Collected Essays Volume III

John Finnis

Description

This central volume in the Collected Essays brings together John Finnis's wide-ranging contribution to central issues in political philosophy.

The volume begins by examining the general theory of political community and social justice. It includes the powerful and well-known Maccabaean Lecture on Bills of Rights -- a searching critique of Ronald Dworkin's moral-political arguments and conclusions, of the European Court of Human Rights' approach to fundamental rights, and of judicial review as a constitutional institution. It is followed by an equally searching analysis of Kant's thought on the intersection of law, right, and ethics. Other papers in the book's opening section include an early assessment of Rawls's A Theory of Justice, a radical re-interpretation of Aquinas on limited government and the significance of the private/public distinction, and a challenging paper on virtue and the constitution.

The volume then focuses on central problems in modern political communities, including the achievement of justice in work and distribution; the practice of punishment; war and justice; the public control of euthanasia and abortion; and the nature of marriage and the common good. There are careful and vigorous critiques of Nietzsche on morality, Hart on punishment, Dworkin on the enforcement of morality and on euthanasia, Rawls on justice and law, Thomson on the woman's right to choose, Habermas on abortion, Nussbaum and Koppelman on same-sex relations, and Dummett and Weithman on open borders.

The volume's previously unpublished papers include a foundational consideration of labor unions, a fresh statement of a new grounding for the morality of sex, a surprising reading of C.S. Lewis's Abolition of Man on contraception, and an introduction reviewing some of the remarkable changes in private and public morality over the past half-century.

Human Rights and Common Good

Collected Essays Volume III

John Finnis

Table of Contents

IntroductionGeneral Theory and Political Justice 1. Human Rights and Their Enforcement2. Duties to Oneself in Kant3. Rawls's A Theory of Justice4. The Foundations of Human Rights5. Limited GovernmentJustice in Work and Distribution 6. On Unions7. Distributive Justice and the Bottom Line8. Migration Rights9. BoundariesJustice and Punishment 10. Hart's Philosophy of Punishment11. The Restoration of Retribution12. Punishment's Aims and Meanings13. Retribution: Punishment's Formative AimWar and Justice 14. War and Peace in the Natural Law TraditionAutonomy, Euthanasia, and Injustice 15. Euthanasia and Justice16. Economics, Justice, and the Value of Life17. Dworkin and Cruzan on End of Life18. Euthanasia and the LawAutonomy, IVF, Abortion, and Injustice 19. CS Lewis and Test-tube Babies20. The Rights and Wrongs of Abortion21. Justice for Mother and Child22. Abortion and Public ReasonMarriage and the Common Good 23. Marriage: A Basic and Exigent Good24. Law, Morality, and 'Sexual Orientation'25. Sex and Marriage: Some Myths and Reasons26. Bad Sex and Marital Good